Question about printing on automatics.

[AntonySharples]

Where is Allen Howe to chime in when you need him!?

[alan802]

I'd put money on it being "several" factors.  Who installed the press?  Do you know if they calibrated the press properly?  Bad ink mixed with bad mesh counts don't help matters either.  If the ink was creamy in your opinion that means it was printable more than likely but if you're printing an ink who's viscosity is less than ideal through a 155/64 or a 110/81 with poor tension (even if they were high tension they still aren't optimal) then I can see how clearing the mesh would be hard.  Now throw in some squeegee blades that aren't sharp, random off contact distances from pallet to pallet, maybe the wrong durometer blade, I see a long list of things to check along with the ink.

[Screen Dan]

Ordinarily I would agree 100% that the ink can't be 100% at fault...

...and then we went through our QCM white ink debacle.  If you can't get white to fly through a 150/48 24~28nm² with two or three strokes with every combination of squeegee durometer, angle and pressure known to man after mixing for hours, controlling temperature, experimenting with EOM, off contact, force-flooding, etc etc etc...then it is the ink.  Changing to Wilflex Quick White made ever single problem go away.  Instantly.

This may be an isolated incident (isolated to every single one of their plastisol whites), but with those meshes and the likelihood that almost all of those other variables have probably been tweaked, even unintentionally...unless those screens are barely over single-digit tensions, I'm sticking with finger pointing at the white ink.

Full disclosure: I've had lots of bad experience with Union and am clearly biased even though that was well over a decade ago.

[ffokazak]

QCM 158? 159?

Thats my favourite ink!

[ScreenFoo]

Is the viscosity too high?  Every once in a while someone tries to pawn off a heat damaged gallon here... 

Found Unions DW to be similar to IC 711 (pre-CPSIA) and Triangles Phoenix when I was testing years ago.
All three could need a touch of either reducer or halftone base, but were printing just fine at proper temp/viscosity.

I think the thread's on the right track though--press parallel, screen tension, and blade sharpness would be the first things I'd run down.

[alan802]

I've run about 50 gallons of diamond white but it's been 3 years since I've touched it.  It was always fine right out of a fresh bucket but as it aged it did so poorly.  Reason why I don't initially want to blame the ink is simply due to me being a white ink whore and I've used so many over the years and nowadays I'll use a gallon of white that 5 years ago I would have said was junk but now I can make it look great.  The biggest hurdle we jumped when it came to printing white ink on darks was with mesh count.  Swap that 155/whatever it may be to a 150/48 and let's see how the game changes.  Swap the 110 for a 120/54 or a 135/48 and things will be totally different.  But all that being said, if the press is out of calibration he may be able to get a decent print on pallet #6, 8, 10 but junk on the remaining pallets and no magic mesh or smiling razor sharp squeegee blade is going to fix the consistency. 

And even if the press was set up by a competent tech, it doesn't mean it was.  And what I mean by that is I've spoken to dozens of new press owners who thought their press was installed by a genius or someone who really did it right only to find out that they didn't once they learn how to check for proper calibration.  Hell, I know a guy on this forum who had a press guru in his shop an entire day calibrating his press only to find out it was so out of whack it couldn't print a color on top of an underbase without having a 4 point trap.

[jonbravado]

Diamond White isn't THAT bad - it's got a heavy pigment load in it so we've noticed that S-mesh helps that ink clear a lot better.
Or any good mesh with a larger inner diameter (openings) - we used to print a lot of it on reds and blacks or blends with simple logos.

It has a purpose, but not in my general production day.  If something needs a thick white print that doesn't let the dye migrate, then Diamond White is the ticket

I'd venture to say it's more of an angle/pressure thing - that ink isn't EASY to print compared to others.  Faster stroke? steeper angle? how sharp are your squeegies?  70/90/70 triple duro helps thick ink lay clear for us.

J

[Screen Dan]

QCM 158? 159?

Thats my favourite ink!

Yup.  They used to work fine for us.  They also sometimes worked fine.  Apparently they have consistency issues with their particle size.  Sometime everything was fine.  Had us diagnosing all over the place randomly. 

We'll go back to them when they fix that and our testing confirms it.

[Screen Dan]

I've run about 50 gallons of diamond white but it's been 3 years since I've touched it.  It was always fine right out of a fresh bucket but as it aged it did so poorly.

...and that was most certainly my issue with it.   Between 5 gallon buckets (I suspected) sitting on my suppliers floor for longer than advisable and us getting fed up and shelving it to only try again later with (understandably worse) results.  The body would change drastically over time.

You live, you learn. 

[alan802]

Dan, did the "recent" issue with the QCM 158/159 have to do with 1-2mm sized chunks clogging up in the stencil?  I had 2 5-gallon pails of Tidy where that happened and then bought a 5 of 158 from a different supplier that was good.  But even if they've got it all sorted out I would bet there are hundreds of gallons out there with chunks and I really don't have time to open a pail and get 20 prints in to find out.  Not that it's impossible to find the chunks prior to printing, it just isn't ideal.  I took a small scoop out and spread it out on our stainless table and you have to spread it out really thin to find the chunks.

[Screen Dan]

That's pretty much exactly the problem.  We couldn't get an entire round of shirts off the press before we had to extremely thoroughly clean out the stencil...even brought Camie 480 screen opener back into the mix after years of swearing it off in an effort to detoxify and green up the shop.

We started using it because it worked, was phtalate free and we were getting a great price as the first big customer from an upstart supplier. 

They used the term "particle size," even brought in someone who was described to me as  one of their "chemistry experts," who did know his stuff in regards to screen printing.  Asked all the right questions.  But once we got to mesh aperture, thread diameter, thread count and he said "Murakami 150S?"  I nodded, all of that expertise went right out the window with a concerned "ohhhhhh."  A week later I heard back about the "particle size inconsistencies,"  I brought it up as part of another thread here and a few other people chimed in with similar stories.

...I guess "chunk" and "glob" are just different, if informal, ways of saying "particle."  Murakami was not  reached for comment as to which of their meshes has been certified to transfer chunks and globs of plastisol .

[Frog]

That's pretty much exactly the problem.  We couldn't get an entire round of shirts off the press before we had to extremely thoroughly clean out the stencil...even brought Camie 480 screen opener back into the mix after years of swearing it off in an effort to detoxify and green up the shop.

We started using it because it worked, was phtalate free and we were getting a great price as the first big customer from an upstart supplier. 

They used the term "particle size," even brought in someone who was described to me as  one of their "chemistry experts," who did know his stuff in regards to screen printing.  Asked all the right questions.  But once we got to mesh aperture, thread diameter, thread count and he said "Murakami 150S?"  I nodded, all of that expertise went right out the window with a concerned "ohhhhhh."  A week later I heard back about the "particle size inconsistencies,"  I brought it up as part of another thread here and a few other people chimed in with similar stories.

...I guess "chunk" and "glob" are just different, if informal, ways of saying "particle."  Murakami was not  reached for comment as to which of their meshes has been certified to transfer chunks and globs of plastisol .

It gets even trickier as for some unexplained reason, most standard "chunk" and "glob" sizes are given in metric even when mesh sizes are U.S.! 

[jsheridan]

chunks..

this is screen printing.. not a minecraft game.

they passed off a bad grind and C grade resins to you, the printer and then tried to tell you it was your fault... wow

wilflex or rutland is all ive ever used, this is why.

[Frog]

chunks..

this is screen printing.. not a minecraft game.

they passed off a bad grind and C grade resins to you, the printer and then tried to tell you it was your fault... wow

wilflex or rutland is all ive ever used, this is why.

Interestingly, QMC, Rutland, and Union are now just different flavors from the same ice cream company, though granted, butterfat content can vary.

[Rockers]

I think just putting the blame only on the white is not correct. There are probably several factors to be taken into account. Screen tension and off contact might be an issue and not level pallets.
We are using Wilflex Olympia white and recently added Wilflex Epic Amazing Brite White which is a great ink to have.